Chapter 551: Chapter 550: Too Tired for This

By the time Noah finally returned toward his home, the exhaustion building up was impossible to ignore.

The exhaustion didn’t affect his body itself; he was still perfectly functional.

But by now, he didn’t want to deal with any more matters if he could help it.

The constant overthinking was beginning to wear on him more than he realized. It felt as though his mind rarely ever stopped moving anymore.

Dummy ended up being the final thing that pushed his patience toward its limit tonight.

So much so that when Gwen came to ask him where she was supposed to sleep, he didn’t bother to think about the answer.

"Follow me, Eve has enough space in her room." That was the entirety of his response.

Whether Gwen would convince the spoiled vampire to share her bed or she would sleep on the floor, none of that mattered to him right now.

"...What?" Gwen’s reaction was fair to have, but Noah already continued walking past her before she could question him further.

Truthfully, he didn’t even care enough right now to realize the kind of situation he had just thrown her into.

A nervous and visibly confused Gwen quietly followed behind Noah the entire way back.

Truthfully, she still hadn’t fully processed the answer he gave her earlier.

Or rather...

The complete lack of care behind it.

She genuinely couldn’t tell if Noah trusted her enough already to casually place her beside the others...

Or if he was simply too exhausted to think about the situation any further.

At this point, Gwen was beginning to suspect it was the latter.

The moment Noah approached his home, voices immediately reached his ears from inside.

Arachne, Ailetta, and Eve. The three were apparently still talking amongst themselves.

Strangely enough, the sound alone already eased some of Noah’s lingering irritation.

At the very least, it made passing Gwen off onto them significantly easier.

Ailetta especially was naturally good at handling situations involving other people.

Or more accurately...

She was good at forcing herself into situations, whether others wanted her there or not.

Before Noah fully entered, part of their discussion drifted clearly into his ears.

"This might be one of those things where we just let time take its course," Ailetta said matter-of-factly.

"It’s easy for you to say that. You already found a way to solve your problem..." Arachne’s lack of confidence was visibly noticeable in her tone alone.

"It’s not good to compare so much, remember? Besides, who knows if I’m right about this? That’s why I said we should be patient."

Before Arachne could respond, Eve abruptly inserted herself into the discussion instead.

"Then what about me?"

Noah already knew exactly what expression she was making without even seeing her face.

"You two were given souls and are already so strong. Am I supposed to wait too? Help me learn to evolve."

There was it, the pout. Noah could practically picture it perfectly already.

Strangely enough, the thought itself eased some of the tension building in his head without him realizing it.

"Didn’t Diablo just receive a soul?" Arachne pointed out.

"That doesn’t count," Eve complained immediately. "That’s him, but what about me?"

"Eve..." Her tone carried the same kind of false gentleness she used whenever she was about to say something irritating. "What if the way for you to evolve is learning how to be patient?"

The room immediately became quieter afterward.

Noah quietly rubbed the side of his head before finally stepping inside.

The moment he entered, the discussion abruptly stopped altogether.

The room immediately became silent.

Arachne stiffened, while Eve froze midway through her pouting. Even Ailetta looked strangely calm, which immediately made Noah suspicious.

Noah’s eyes slowly moved across all three of them.

He was fairly certain they already sensed him approaching long before he actually entered.

It wasn’t like he was trying to hide himself.

’...Oh.’

Noah slightly admonished himself afterward.

Ever since the incident in which his presence unintentionally began to pressure the others around him, masking himself gradually became second nature.

At this point, he was suppressing his presence almost subconsciously now.

But that only made the situation feel even stranger.

Because the three of them were staring at him as though he had interrupted a conversation he absolutely wasn’t supposed to hear.

That only confused him further, considering, from what he gathered outside, the discussion genuinely hadn’t sounded particularly secretive at all.

"You all didn’t have to stop just because of me."

"That’s alright, we were just finishing up, weren’t we, ladies?" Ailetta quickly followed up.

Arachne avoided making direct eye contact almost immediately afterward.

"...Yes."

Her response came out just a little too delayed.

Eve was somehow even worse. The vampire immediately nodded far too many times in agreement.

"Mhm! Finished, completely finished."

Noah stared at the three of them for several moments before eventually giving up.

"It’s not like I’m dying to know." He rubbed the side of his head tiredly. "At least try whispering next time if you’re attempting to keep something secret."

The room somehow became even quieter than before. And noticeably more tense.

Eve’s mouth slowly dropped open in shock, while Arachne’s expression immediately became colder than usual.

"Noah..." Ailetta stood there smiling eerily. "How much exactly did you hear?"

Their reactions alone made Noah realize he apparently stepped into something far more dangerous than he originally thought.

Unfortunately, he was far too mentally exhausted to care anymore.

Instead of answering, Noah simply walked past all of them toward his bed before dropping onto it hard enough that the mattress bounced beneath him.

The sudden impact launched Eve several inches upward from where she had been sitting beside him.

"Ah! Hehehee!"

Instead of getting upset, Eve immediately started giggling while bouncing slightly from the force.

Noah, unfazed by her giggles, buried his face directly into the bed afterward without any intention of moving again.

Ailetta stared at him for several moments before eventually narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"...You’re avoiding the question."

"I came into the conversation with you talking about letting things take its course. No big deal."

Noah’s muffled voice came from the bed a moment later.

Immediately, the strange atmosphere within the room eased.

Surprisingly, the one who relaxed the most was Arachne. Perhaps because Noah genuinely didn’t seem interested in digging any further into the topic.

Meanwhile, Eve quietly leaned closer toward Ailetta before whispering far louder than she intended.

"Was it because of the thing?"

"Yes."

"The really embarrassing thing?"

"...Yes. Now stop talking." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Oh..."

Noah’s eye twitched slightly against the blanket.

It genuinely felt as though the two of them were trying their absolute hardest to make him curious about what they were discussing, despite supposedly wanting to keep it secret.

At this point, if the world itself exploded outside, he would probably just ask it to wait until morning.

Ailetta finally noticed the way Noah’s body had gone almost entirely limp against the bed.

Her expression softened slightly afterward.

"...You really are exhausted." The three shared a look that Noah failed to see.

They weren’t oblivious to all that Noah had been doing.

At some point, Noah had gradually started carrying the burden of every problem surrounding the territory almost entirely by himself.

None of them liked watching it happen.

The earlier conversation regarding evolution only made that fact stand out even more clearly now.

Noah constantly worried about helping them continue moving forward.

Yet he almost never relied on them in return.

They knew that it was unhealthy, and they wished that he would also depend on them. But at some point, they also needed to take initiative on their own to support him without being asked.

That was partly what the earlier discussion was about.

At the end of it all, Eve was now lying across Noah’s back while absentmindedly playing with his hair, while Noah ignored it all.

—

Since the moment she appeared with Noah, Gwen had remained awkwardly standing near the entrance.

Especially because nobody seemed to acknowledge that she was standing there at all.

Eventually, Arachne’s eyes slowly shifted toward Gwen instead.

Then immediately glared.

"Why is she here?"

The room finally went quiet for an entirely different reason afterward.

Noah quickly sensed Arachne’s mood worsening. At almost the exact same time, Eve visibly jolted before immediately sitting up straighter on Noah’s back.

The vampire’s face became heated, only just now noticing there was an outsider present while she had been sprawled across Noah moments earlier.

Gwen herself looked even more uncomfortable than before beneath Arachne’s stare.

Noah stared blankly into the bed for several moments before remembering she followed him back here in the first place.

"...Right."

The delayed realization caused Gwen’s expression to twitch.

Noah slowly lifted his head from the bed afterward.

"Eve, I forgot to mention, but Gwen will be sleeping with you until she gets a place of her own.

Silence again.

"...What?"

Eve sounded personally betrayed by the announcement.

Being the subject of it all, Gwen simply closed her eyes as though mentally confirming that yes, this was indeed her life now.

Arachne’s gaze remained fixed entirely on Gwen.

"...Why Eve?"

Noah answered without hesitation.

"And what? Leave her with Fenrir and his... unique pack? Or have her in a room with Kratos watching her like a hawk the entire night?"

Arachne paused, imagining both scenes. Her facial expressions said it all.

"That’s fair."

Eve was locked in place as she kept looking back and forth between Noah and Gwen, trying to process how this had somehow become her problem.